Co-Leadership in ambiguous environments

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  Traversing on Granite Peak's South Slopes

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  Our camp

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  Start of our journey, right at the wilderness boundary did we leave our sled

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  Sunny weather on day 1 while skinning over Upper Aerolake

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  Me at dawn in windy conditions approaching the mountain on day 2

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  Last bit of the route: climbing a snowy rock ridge to the summit

Leadership in partnerships, teams or groups while working towards a common goal,

comes down to personal insight and social skills. No matter what type of leadership

we’re trying to apply – everything starts with the individual.

In April of this year my good mountain partner Lisa and I decided to reach a common

goal – climbing and skiing the highest mountain of Montana – Granite Peak. Her and I are very different in our mountain background and even our leadership styles vary.

But first I want to start with a clean slate and explain why I decided to attempt this summit in a two-person partnership and not a bigger group. My deep desire to summit this mountain in winter with an equal and trusted partner was to fulfill my ego of having an honest and goal-oriented effort of climbing this specific mountain. I knew that if we would invite more friends on this trip, our chances of summiting would diminish and folks would bring their just

opinions into decision-making. I think this is a honest reflection – it is not very friend-oriented, but if I want to attempt a mountain with a bigger group I would choose a summit that I

didn’t care as much about summiting.

Second, the importance of attempting this goal with an equal partner is of great importance. As a mountain athlete, I appreciate the in-the-field learning and decision making, pushing myself just outside of my comfort zone. With a partner that is physically much stronger than me (like many male guides), I would not get the same chances of pushing myself just the right amount and co-leading the ascent. I am in a position, where I know that when someone much fitter joins, I will be too slow to participate, and it would be too easy to catapult me out of my healthy risk zone.

However, Lisa was still in greater shape than me, 5 inches shorter, and probably 5

min/km faster. She’s been skiing since High School, cross-country skiing races like the

Birki and running trail marathons in the top 3 placements. She’s a quiet leader, but doesn't let anyone overrule her – she’s confident and knows her observations and

experience. You could not push her without sound reasoning into any risky

decision in the backcountry. I would say all of the mountain sports are her passion, but

endurance on skis or foot is her strongest suit.

My strong suit is climbing, maybe not particularly winter climbing but I feel much more

comfortable with it than skiing. In 2020, I moved to Montana and started to learn all the

alpine sports – ice climbing, skiing, trad climbing. I loved it so much that I began the

long and difficult journey of becoming a mountain guide. Even though I knew - that Lisa

could be much faster than me, I trusted her early on. She has this empathy for folks that

even when they are slow and hold her back, she finds other reasons on why to spend

her time with them. I know this sounds like it should be the status-quo, but trust me, in a

mountain-athlete-town like Bozeman, there are no friends on powder days, and

generally it’s all about your personal achievements (pause to reflect…). As a leader I

think I can be pushy and overly optimistic, but luckily I am able to recognize this and

adjust my pursuits depending on whom I am working with. I am direct and always look

for clear communication even if it brings confrontation with it. An ongoing journey is to

voice my directness in a more empathetic and understanding communication, making

space to build trust.

Our summit experience was a great act of co-leading, each of us being the patient leader in the stronger terrain.

The sun hasn’t come up yet and we’re both looking up the steep wind-drifted rib that

leads to the great traverse on the mountain. We left camp an hour ago, but were now getting

blown off our feet by wind gusts, so strong, that we had to duck down behind the safety of big

boulders. Helmets on – now we could be hit by flying rocks or by being blown off the

mountain into rocky terrain. Even though it is winter – the mountain looks bare, showing

the recent impact of heavy winds. Lisa took the lead up the steep ramp, ice axe in one

hand, fist in the other. Because the wind was still blowing so hard on the exposed

traverse we decided to keep walking with our skis on our back, rather than skinning up.

Whenever I took a rest, Lisa was already a hundred yards in front of me, the distance

constantly increasing, but she was always in sight. The difficulty to move in such

conditions made me worry about our summit attempt, but the thought of a more

protected feature ahead, a couloir, gave me hope to keep trying. After unroped climbing and traversing

steep hard snow we got to another resting point behind a big rock just at the

entrance of the couloir. Looking up, the couloir looked very different than expected.

Instead of being this gentle soft bowl with the perfect consistency of stability for climbing

up and skiing down – it was a twisted form of a steep solid rib of hard snow. It created

two fall lines and was so narrow that I did not see myself skiing it safely down without

falling into a steep field of rocky scree below.

Luckily, my ego was not attached to skiing the upper 300 meters of this mountain and I felt perfectly fine just walking and climbing.

Lisa was a little torn, her skiing skills are much better, but a decision had to be made

– the time was ticking for the dangerous sun exposure. We left our skis behind in a

wind-protected cave and leap-frogged up the couloir , becoming wind protected again after

less than a 100 meters. The snow became softer and stickier, making it easy for a safe

ascend and making Lisa questioning the decision of leaving her skis behind. On a map we

had accomplished the majority of the mountain, only maybe 70 meters away from the

summit.

But the steep snowfields ended and only loose, rocky spires, walls and boulders appeared in front of us. With aluminum crampons on our ski boots and an ice axe, we started our ascent of endless ridgelines intersecting towards the flat summit. I climbed at a much faster rate and realized that I left Lisa behind. She was out of her comfort zone and did not expect this level of climbing without a rope. The rock was sometimes icy or loose and the exposure was unforgiving. We were in contact via radio and after I had scouted out the path to the summit I came back down to her. I did not immediately suspect what happened, I thought she took a wrong turn by accident.

When we met up again she told me honestly what was going on and how out of her

comfort zone she felt. For a moment I was worried for her and at the same time felt sad

about potentially having to turn around and not attempting this summit together. I

realized that I was proud of how far we have come, seeing the summit, recognizing the

summer route I have climbed many many times before on the other side. It was a

beautiful day, the wind calmed down and the colors and contrasts of snow and golden

rock felt mesmerizing. All this effort brought us up to this beautiful but dangerous place.

Lisa told me to keep going since the summit was in short reach while she started

her descent. At that moment I still didn’t realize her fear and she didn’t probably as well.

I kept climbing, finding easier ways to ascend until I got the true summit ridge which

was just a walk. Over the radio, she told me she was ascending instead, following my

footsteps in snow and rock. I returned and we ascended step by step together. It was

cold on the summit with an incredible view and the sun slowly creeped up around 11

am. On the descent, I put my guide hat on and respectfully helped Lisa (still without a

rope) descent the best ways possible. She did have a short panic attack crossing on top of the

Gash couloir, a 50-degree steep line that would not allow for self-arrest, just holding

on to some sugary snow on top. I was so grateful for her being honest about her fears

and showing the full extent of it. It helped me understand better how to support her in

this terrain and make our descend in the rocks safely.

It was a full cycle moment. Two years ago, Lisa and I skied the Haute Route Traverse in Switzerland – and it was a big venture for me. I had a couple of times where I broke down of tiredness, or where she showed me the ropes. On day 5, we only had to move a few miles of terrain without much elevation gain – but it was all traversing on an angle. For me this created an excruciating pain, holding an angled position with my feet for hours that I was not used to. While the other folks in the group left me behind, she stayed with me, going step by step and taking breaks. While I judged myself for not being able to keep up,

she made me feel normal and accepted.

This whole long story tells me that, no matter how often you’re a leader or how you lead others, without constant personal awareness of strengths, weaknesses, behaviors and emotions – one cannot access the whole potential of a co-leadership.